Come visit my "creepy treehouse"!

An interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education likens professors use of social networking technologies to an invitation to a "creepy treehouse". The many references that are made to instructors "intruding" on student's "social space" (as if it's not our space, too) irk me a bit, but the article offers an interesting range of perspectives on the issue. Worth a read, as are the comments on the article!

YouTube Now Mutes Videos With Unauthorized Copyrighted Music

YouTube Now Mutes Videos With Unauthorized Copyrighted Music

(from Mashable.com) I uploaded a short promo video for our school's Elective Fair on my YouTube channel, and it was muted within an hour!  I get the whole copyright protection thing, but does that mean now my students can't put their film projects on YouTube? I guess so...

Digital World: Teachers Today (from YouTube)

I like this video not only for its message, but also for its clever use of animoto.com!

night owls rule! (the creative world, anyway)

News in Science - Night owls are more creative - 12/13/2006
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1810399.htm
Do your best work at night? Take solace as new research suggests that night owls are more likely to be creative thinkers.

Yes, this is kind of an old article, but I found it by clicking a link in this (more recent) article from Wired, which justifies my lifelong struggle to try to function in the 7-to-3 world of teaching: 3 Smart Things About Sleeping Late.

The Networked Student (from Dianne Krause's blog)

Today I'm hijacking a post from Dianne Krause's blog, because you ALL need to watch this video. It's one of the best representations of what learning in a Web 2.0 "classroom" can potentially be (and apparently, it's already happening in some places). While you're there, subscribe to Dianne's blog!

The Networked Student | a whole new dianne

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Jing Jing Jingle-ing too!

(Please forgive the cornball post title) It blows my very own mind when I realize that I never told you all about how incredibly wonderful PodcampAZ was. Perhaps it's because the very experience defied my humble description. Or I could have just forgotten. Suffice it to say, however, that it was far and away the best conference experience I've had since PodcampNYC, and may have possibly eclipsed it with it's persistent sunshine, friendly volunteers and fellow "campers", and not least of all, Brian Shaler's innovative Twitterwall that kept everyone informed of Podcamp doings, sessions, meetups, and impromptu plans by way of a projected wall image (very James Bond!) of a collaborative Twitter discussion featuring Podcamp hashtags.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Perhaps the greatest discovery I made while at PodcampAZ (other than how to order food at a Sonic) was the existence of Jing, a free download that may not do everything Camtasia Studios does, but does enable you to do a very basic screencast, upload it, store it, and is (did I mention) FREE as well as cross-platform!
The fact that Jing is free, Mac and PC compatible and very easy to use opens up a universe of possiblities for educators who are trying to incorporate more media into their content delivery. I hadn't even considered doing screencasts for my classes until I started tinkering with Jing (in my hotel, I was so eager to put it to work). How do you use screencasting software? What do you think you can do with Jing? Better still, do you think Jing can help encourage the more tech-reluctant, "digital-immigrant" teachers to use media as part of their instructional arsenal?

Get. Off. Paper.

Get. Off. Paper.

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Will Richardson (author of the great ed-tech blog Weblogg-Ed) talks about how "...just about everywhere I go where groups of educators are in the room, paper abounds. Notebooks, legal pads, sticky notes, index cards…it’s everywhere. We are, as Alan November so often says, 'paper trained,' and the worst part is it shows no signs of abating".